In article , "N. Woolley"
wrote:

Ok, so I spoke (or wrote) like this was a casual conversation instead of
a classroom. I have learned a lesson - I had better be precise.

I have also read a good book on the subject. 'Lords of the Harvest:
Biotech, Money, and the Future of Food' by Daniel Charles. It came out
in 2001 and covers the origins of the industry. The author is not biased
for or against.

-Nancy

As a molecular biologist I was tempted to respond to your first post. I
chose not to because I would have to invest a lot of time to make a
reasoned argument refuting several of your points. I was not sure the
effort would be worth my time - the issues are too complex and audience
too mixed to be able to cover the ground we need to cover - for example
conventional breeding uses heavy mutagenesis frequently to generate the
heterogeneity needed for breeding stocks. Conventional mutagensis also
mainly yields loss of function mutations vs gain of function. Many genes
are mutated and nobody knows what was hit. So these lines are far from
pristine. There is a huge gulf between the tomato we eat and primitive
forms in Peru. (Incidentally, I intend to try at least a hundred heirloom
Tomato varieties over the next ten years - so I appreciate our rapidly
dwindling genetic heritage).

There are several issues about disease resistant cultivars not being
released to poor countries because of peoples phobias of GM food and not
Monsantos greed as you suggested. In the ultimate analysis, I decided I
simply did not have the time to articulate all the complexities that go
into the GM debate and then defend my position so will stay on the
sidelines.

Roland